Hey guys, just writing in to talk about something I've found out: The N force hatchets actually make a very solid throwing axe if you throw them so that the blade's facing you. So much so that I actually managed to hold 7 or 8 zombies of just with dual wielding them and doing a mix of meleeing and thrown axes. Anyone else have experience using these?

SUNY Binghamton just allowed them to be used like socks. We have a 'no melee' policy, and you're dead-on with how to throw them. You cannot effectively throw them by holding the handle normally, but holding the blade toward you works quite well. We don't think there will be a lot of people using a rather expensive sock, but some crazy people will, and we don't think it will hurt the game, or the players.

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SUNY Binghamton just allowed them to be used like socks. We have a 'no melee' policy, and you're dead-on with how to throw them. You cannot effectively throw them by holding the handle normally, but holding the blade toward you works quite well. We don't think there will be a lot of people using a rather expensive sock, but some crazy people will, and we don't think it will hurt the game, or the players.

I'm thinking Fairview High School is probably going to have basically CoD Black ops melee eventually. Only tomahawks and the knife that comes with the nerf shield. Both throwable. Seems like a fun way to do melee without it being to torturously OP.

I own most of the N-Force weapons & the Klaw is the only one I ever use. The mace & warlock axe are too unwieldy & both have caused injuries. I used the swords the first few times, but they just don't hold up. Should add tho that I also never throw them. Yeah they fly ok if you turn them backwards, but not as well as a sock. So why bother? No, I love these suckers in my off hand when facing a small clutch of geeks. Darts to take down as many as possible. The axe to fend off any I miss if I'm unable to reload. Most games won't allow melees tho. Gives humans too much of an advantage if they can stun zombies with a touch & they are also given an extention of their arm. I've seen just one human just freaking out & flailing around with a melee take out over a dozen geeks with barely an effort. Kinda takes the fun out of it

Yup, the "fail flail" is my biggest issue with allowing melee (behind safety of course ). Of course, the hatchet is kinda cool and I kinda want to get one just to see if there's any possibility at all of it causing injury. The bigger melee weapons all have at least one spot that you don't want to be on the receiving end of. If you don't believe me, you aren't looking hard enough.

Been a while since last having to share insight on melee, but here we go:

The key restriction to insure that melee will not unbalance the game is no dual-wielding - only 1 melee can be used per player at any given time. We considered allowing dual-wielding of the hatchet, but ultimately ruled it's just simpler to leave it at a "no dual-wielding, period" to avoid any and all risk of confusion by players who don't read our rules carefully.

If implemented under the above mentioned simple restriction, melee is by no means overpowered or too dangerous. We've had 4 very successful games in a row with an average of 240 players, and each round has only further proven melee to be no game-changer. Zombies just simply have to adjust, come up with new tactics and manuevers. I myself had some experience as a zombie last semester, and a number of times it only took me and one other zombie to drive a human with a sword to a point where all he could do is choose one of us to go down with him - there was no escape.

Throughout the course of our first two games we developed a list of precautions/restrictions for safety:Longswords are BANNED (this I ruled the moment I got to walmart and struck my leg with it and wow, THAT FREAKING HURT!)NO jabbing/stabbing motionsStrike low - preferrably waist-level or lowerNo excessive force - swing fast, not hard

Also regarding bruises, it's just like paintball - people here join, expecting a few, whether they be self-inflicted or not. It happens once in while, and they take it like a man as they should (one of the commandments of HvZ is after all, "Play it like you've got a pair"). There are plenty of things people do in this game that give them far worse injuries (diving into the ground and hitting rocks, crashing into brick walls/lamp posts, tackling people to the ground, etc.) than what one could ever get from a Nerf melee weapon (save the Longsword).

The way in which we have implemented melee has only contributed to the "balance" of the game, but only a small bit, not enough to be a game-changer, there's still plenty of room for more improvements.

Think of it like touchdowns in football:Without melee, zombies pwn humans at 12-4. Disgusting, right? With melee, zombies win 12-6, maybe 12-7. Sounds a bit better, not quite miraculous, but an improvement much welcomed. Personally, I think it'd be a bit more desirable to see a much closer match, like 12-10 or 12-11 respectively.

Putting it back into HvZ terms, the ideal, balanced game would end in one of two ways: A. The 200 or so zombies just barely wipe out the remaining 50 or so humans just before time runs out during the extraction, or B. About 1-10 of the remaining 50 or so humans just barely manage to survive the time limit of the extraction - still a zombie victory, as the horde has crushed the entire area, a few lucky humans just barely got away to tell the tale...

THIS. Definently this. I'd say that allowing melee with people who how to tag with it(instead of hitting,slicing,or stabbing) makes the game more fun, more fair, and more real. For instance my campus hasn't established socks as a viable source against the undead yet(if ever?)We had someone in our first game who dual wielded 2 LARP swords...never again. Not like it hurt because they were made of foam and duct tape, but he lasted to the final mission. As the humans were making their way to the base, him and the other melee users held off the zombies on their coattails so circling them was impossible and rushing was very unlikely. Combine his ability to tag with precision in 2 different directions and the firepower of the heavies behind him with the 3:1 zombie ratio we had to do something. Instead of going for the whole group we targeted the melee users first and it worked like a charm! We circled them specifically in the middle of a clearing with nowhere to go. I can't tell you how hard mr. dualwielder was brought down...

I've always thought that the reach of a melee weapon was directly proportionate to it's overpoweredness. In this one game I went to there were pool noodles unlocked as a melee a couple missions in. They ended up being incredibly overpowered because the reach and speed they had made it impossible for any zombie to penetrate an 180Â° arc around them. I think that tomahawks and knives are pretty balanced because there's a 1-2 foot space in which they are lethal to zombies, which makes it very possible for a skilled or lucky zombie to slip past those defenses.

I thought this would be so also, until the tank zombie we had takes 10hits to stun, and has a pool noodle sized larp sword to counter...This is why shields are allowed shields to a degree in our games. So far we don't have weeklong games but the day games are just as good!

In my experience,(which is really not much) the best way to throw the hatchet is by holding the end instead of the handle, and on the side opposite the blade. A weird way to throw an axe, but it seems to work the best in my opinion.

In my experience,(which is really not much) the best way to throw the hatchet is by holding the end instead of the handle, and on the side opposite the blade. A weird way to throw an axe, but it seems to work the best in my opinion.

Please refrain from necroing without content. (Yes, that's interesting, but it could go in a different thread, armory thread or something)